


Aftermath

by richardkatz



Category: 13 Reasons Why (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-06-14 17:20:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15393633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/richardkatz/pseuds/richardkatz
Summary: Normalcy is not achieved overnight.





	1. Thinking About Tyler

**Author's Note:**

> This is my take on what happens with Clay and Justin after the end of season two. Thank you for reading!

JUSTIN

It’s been one week since the school dance. When he lies in his new bed at night, listening to Clay’s soft snoring on the other side of the room, he still sees Clay holding that big-ass gun. And his face as it was that night, resigned and grim as the police sirens blared. And he hears his own voice, high and frantic, “put the gun down before the cops get here. Put it down, Clay, put the fucking gun down.” 

And then he sees Clay in front of Bryce’s house, holding that pistol to his head. Clay now, he tosses and turns at night, dreaming about it maybe, and Justin sees Jess’s face reflected in the red and blue of the police sirens, her mouth in a frozen scream. And then Jess earlier that evening, Jess in her dance dress, Jess at Monet’s, Jess standing in front of her locker at school. 

At that point he usually crawls carefully out of the bed, pulling out the hoodie where he keeps his stuff, and slinks off to the bathroom. When he is lying in bed again with H coursing through his veins, he doesn’t see anything at all. 

Things are normal here, normal being relative, normal for them (not Tyler though, Tyler will never have normal again). Normal for an extra person living in your house. But there is enough normal now that Justin has to try to figure it out and be part of it. It’s hard though, because nothing makes sense around here. 

First there’s breakfast in the morning. “They started it after Hannah,” Clay says. “The school emailed, and uhh… well apparently eating breakfast as a family was the solution.” His voice ratchets up at the end of his words, the Clay version of sarcastic, but Justin can’t figure out why eating eggs and pancakes and whatever else every morning is so bad. When he first got back from juvie he mostly just focused on the food… there’s always so much of it, and it’s so fucking good… He threw up after breakfast, that first morning he was there, actually. Maybe he ate too fast yeah, but nobody noticed him run into the bathroom before they left for school, and whatever. It was worth it, the food was that good. Now though, everybody always wants him to talk, which is fine, ok, he can talk, but everything he tries to say gets him this look from Clay, this shut up and don’t tell them our business look, and by now he doesn’t know what to say. Clay can’t be pissed at him. He can’t be. 

At school, he follows Clay, and sometimes Clay and Tony. Clay is always giving him advice, or directions, or something. “You’ve got to catch up on everything you missed,” and “let me see your notes, you took notes, right?” Justin has never taken notes, and he’s never going to catch up, but he sits in class now and scribbles down everything that happens into the notebooks that Mrs. Jensen bought him, and he even writes down his homework. 

Clay checks his work for him during study hall. He flips through his notebooks with an irritated look, and he scratches out the answers Justin’s written, and he says “wrong, wrong…” and he shakes his head the whole time. 

“I always passed before, you know,” Justin mumbles, but getting Cs isn’t passing anymore anyway, not around here. He likes it better when Cyrus or Alex or someone is in the library with them so that Clay has someone else’s mistakes to focus on too. He tries to care about his grades as much as Clay does. 

Mr. Jensen often makes dinner in the evenings. Not every evening, but on the nights where there isn’t cooking there’s still food. There’s always a ton of food here. And questions about school. Always questions about school. 

He figures he needs to get a job, so that he can buy more of his own school shit, or have some money so he’s not fucked later down the road.  So he can… well, he’s not really buying that much heroin anyway. Just a little. A lot less than before. 

Ten days after the school dance, he happens to glance at the bulletin board inside the library entrance and an obscenely yellow flier catches his attention. DELIVERY DRIVER AND CATERING ASSISTANT NEEDED, the sign declares. NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY. He rips the staple off and puts the flier in his pocket.  
__________________________

 

CLAY

“I’ve found you a girl, man,” Justin says when they’re driving to school. 

“... what?”

“A girl.” He glances over and Justin gives him a big smile. Clay looks back at the road. “So?”

“So what, Justin…”

“So you wanna hear about her?”

“Sure,” Clay says, feeling resigned, sure that he’s going to hear about her either way. 

“Her name is Nicole. She’s a sophomore and she just moved here from Georgia with her aunt, and she’s got this great-“

“Wait, I think I know her… she’s in my chemistry class.”

“Figures. Her grandma or great aunt or something is the one that hired me for that catering job. I’ve seen her around there some, and she’s super nerdy and…” Justin trails off, perhaps aware that he’s not really selling this. Clay thinks about Skye, and her little moped, and the way she smiled when he said goodbye to her. “She’s, well, she’s…”

“She’s what, Justin?” He sighed. Being a jock for so long had stunted Justin’s ability to use words. 

“Fierce,” Justin mutters. Clay glances at him again, but Justin’s looking out the car window. 

“Excuse me?” Really? 

“What?” Justin finally turns to look at him, his posture defensive.  
     
He tries to look at her surreptitiously during chemistry though. There’s been so much shit in his life lately that another girlfriend is the last thing, the. Last. Thing that he needs, but it doesn’t hurt to look, right? The girl in question is sitting next to Sheri, squinting up at the formula that Mrs. Relo is writing on the board. She’s Latino, maybe, or something… her hair spills down over her shoulders, dark and wavy, where it rests on her green tank top. Actually, she is kind of pretty. Clay looks back down at his notes. No, he tells himself. Not again.   

Alex and Jess are together at his usual lunch table, so there’s no Justin in sight. He tosses his tray onto the table, a few peas rolling off it and onto Alex’s lap. 

“What’s your deal today?” Alex asks in that way he has, that trying not to care tone. 

“What…  no deal; I’m always like this,” Clay says dismissively. Always like what he doesn’t know. Dismissive, pissed. Maybe because he is thinking about Tyler, yeah, that, not that anybody else ever is. Tyler in a psych ward, Tyler’s mother sobbing at the police station, Tyler’s car being picked apart by the police. 

Justin’s at his new job that evening, so there’s nobody at dinner to blab about they way Monty shoved him onto the floor from behind in the hallway that day. And then he does his homework in peace, even though it’s Friday. And then he’s bored, and trying not to think about Tyler or Tyler ending up in jail or Tyler’s trunk full of weapons, and where the fuck is Justin, anyway? 

He doesn’t show up until Clay’s lying in bed, bringing a strong smell of onions into the dark bedroom. “Jesus, Justin, what were you doing?”

“Cooking food?” Justin says in the dark. “At my new job?” Clay can’t see it, but he imagines that he’s giving him that stupid grin of his and he groans at the thought. 

“Sorry?”

“Ugh, just go to bed.”

“You ok, Jensen?”

Clay rolls over and tried to understand why he never appreciated his life when privacy was part of it. “I’m fine.”  
     
“You thinking about Tyler…?”

“Fuck off.” Clay pressed his face into his pillow. 

“I mean, like, it’s normal if you are.”

“Like you know what’s normal and what’s not,” Clay snaps. 

Justin shuts up. 

Clay doesn’t want to, but he feels bad.


	2. You Worry Too Much

JUSTIN

Spice of Life! Catering! Events! Tacos! Fond Memories! proclaimes the cursive paint across the side of the purple truck waiting outside for him on Saturday morning. He hadn’t understood how obnoxious purple could be before looking at that truck, but they’d hired him, so.  Justin ducked into the passenger seat, his new white dress shirt flapping as he tried to finish buttoning it. “Hey Erick,” he said to his new coworker. Erick, tiny and a thousand years old and already smelling like salsa, greeted him enthusiastically in Spanish. 

“Sounds good, Erick.” Erick didn’t speak English and Justin didn’t speak Spanish, but so far Justin could mostly figure out what to do. What did it really matter, knowing the same language never helped him understand what to do with anybody else anyway.

First they set up food at the fire hall for the Jones Family Reunion. Justin didn’t know the Jones family, but there were apparently thousands of them. Like, thousands. Like, who could have that big a family anyway? Next they returned to Spice of Life! headquarters, which was actually just a big old farmhouse. Justin had only been there twice, once when he got hired, once when he helped prep food, so he was not prepared for what awaited him inside. It was like the taco truck had exploded… Old Ms. Garcia and her sister, Even Older Ms. Garcia were fluttering around the giant kitchen with Young Ms.Garcia and Nicole. Pots and pans, piles of vegetables, and trays of tortillas littered every surface, and an old radio blared out Spanish music. 

Justin glanced at Erick, who just shrugged. He spent the next few hours trying (and pretty much failing) to learn to cook. “Sorry,” he kept saying, until even Erick was telling him to stop, and Even Older Ms Garcia sent him to cut up tomatoes instead. He flinched as a hand dropped onto his shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, you’ll get the hang of it,” Nicole was saying.   
      
“Yeah, I know, no big deal Nicole,” he snapped. 

“Nikki.”

“I thought you went by Nicole,” he said stupidly. 

“My friends call me Nikki,” she said with a shrug.   
_____________________________

 

CLAY

Justin fucking Foley. Lives in his house now, his bedroom now. Calls his mom and dad Lainie and Matt, at his mother’s insistence. Brings home burnt enchiladas and salsa from his new job. Follows him down the hallways at school. Justin fucking Foley, tailing after him like the pet dog he never asked for. 

“Just feed him and take him for a walk twice a day and you’ll be fine,” Tony jokes, but nobody ever has to worry that their pet dog is going to start using heroin again, or run away when the whim strikes him. 

“Actually, dogs are always running away. Haven’t you ever watched Homeward Bound?” Tony says, and Clay rolls his eyes so hard they almost stick up there.   
      
“Seriously though Clay, relax. Justin’s going to be ok.” They’re in Tony’s car, heading out to meet Caleb for pizza. 

“You can’t know that,” Clay hisses defiantly. 

“Yes, Clay, actually I can,” Tony says, smirking slightly at the road in front of them. He doesn’t explain himself until Clay asks. 

“Because he has you and your parents now, Clay. People he can count on. That’s all he needs.”

Clay still worries though. About Justin, and about Tyler (where is Tyler now? Nobody knows. Nobody asks). About Alex, Alex walking down the hall at school, Alex alone at night with his thoughts. And Skye. Even if she sends him snapchats of graffiti and cats and her new school, he can’t help but worry about her. And Jessica, who still has to walk through the hallways every day with Bryce Walker. “When is that fucker actually leaving, it’s May for Christ’s sake!” Cyrus asks him, but Clay doesn’t know. 

“You worry too much,” Justin says when they’re going to bed on Tuesday night. “It’s just… it’s not all on you, you know? Your parents, they like… would want to help you, if you told them, you know?”

They’d been talking about the last English paper of the year, but Clay knows that’s not what they’re talking about any more. “If I told them what, Justin?” He crawls into his bed, throwing the blanket up over his shoulders forcefully, turning toward the wall as Justin flicks off the lamp. 

“That you’re worried, or anxious or whatever. Or angry or something.” Justin’s got some nerve, telling him what to do, telling him to talk to his parents. Some nerve. Jesus. 

“There’s nothing to tell, Justin,” Clay snaps, turning to face the ceiling, scowling into the darkness “Jesus, mind your own business.”

“But what about… what about the gun, at Bryce’s that night? I mean, you don’t have to tell them exactly what happened, but-“

“Just shut up, ok Justin! You have no right to lecture me about the choices I make, come on! Maybe it’s not that I’m too worried, maybe it’s that you’re not worried enough, ok!”

He’s elicited silence from the other side of the room, just like he knew he would. He pulls his blanket up over his face and rolls back toward the wall. 

The next day at school Clay is joined in the library by Tony and then Justin. He takes Justin’s English essay and begins marking mis-punctuated paragraphs wordlessly. Mostly just to humor him he lets Justin read over his own paper. 

“Is ‘disenfranchisement’ really a word?” Justin says thirty seconds after Clay hands him his draft. 

“It really is, Foley,” Tony says as he rummages in his backpack. 

“Where is your works cited page?” Clay asks, looking up as a girl sits down in the empty seat next to Justin. It’s her. What was her name, Nicole? He looks back down at the paper as she smiles at him. 

“Hey, Nikki,” Justin says. “You know Tony and Clay?”

“Like I could not know a Garcia. Best enchiladas in town!” Tony says, smacking the table and earning them a stern look from the librarian. “You move out here to join the family business then?”

“Something like that,” the girl says, flipping her hair over her shoulder and stacking books in the table like she plans to stay a while. “My aunt and I moved here from Atlanta a few weeks ago. Justin, this is your brother then?”

“Something like that,” Clay says, looking down again as she smirks. Justin raises his eyebrows ever so slightly at him, and Clay can feel his cheeks redden. So she’s pretty when she smiles. So what?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!


	3. Weird Shit Justin Does

JUSTIN

He works on Wednesday evenings now. Some big bingo night thing every week at one of the big churches in town. A small part him worried that he’d step over the threshold of the building and God would see him and just set him on fire or something, but instead he just sets up food and watches a bunch of old people play bingo and eat tacos. As he’s packing the truck back up with Erick he sees them walking down the sidewalk out of the corner of his eye. Jess and Alex. It was the cane that gave them away, they’re too far away to have noticed him, right? He ducks down behind the truck and tries to remember how to breathe. 

“I’m bad for you, Jess. And Alex isn’t. I mean, I… it’s better this way.” It took him three days after the dance to say it, but he did say it. And he didn’t say “we can still be friends,” even though he wanted to. And he didn’t say “I’ll always love you,” even though he always would. He tries not to talk to her at school now. Not to make eye contact. Not to glance in her direction. But her she is now, when his guard is down. His hands tremble slightly as he forces himself to come out from behind the truck and finish cleaning up. 

Fucking Jess. He fucking loves her. 

Clay’s asleep on top of his bed, his headphones still in and the lamp still on when Justin slips into their room that evening. He paces between the bed and the door restlessly, clamping his hands under his armpits. Focus on the future, you idiot, he thinks, but his brain isn’t listening. It’s thinking about Jess, and blowing everything that could have been with Jess, and how he couldn’t even disappear like she wanted him to. 

And maybe if he had, they wouldn’t have to hide from each other in plain sight. He’d thought that talking to the police or going to juvie or any of that shit might have made him feel better about all of it, but it hadn’t. Juvie had just made him feel like he was back with his mom again, waiting for the next person to shoot up or start a fight or scream at him for no reason. 

Justin flips through some of Clay’s comic books, trying to settle down before he wakes Clay up, but instead a bunch of them just slide onto the floor.  “Shit,” he whispers. 

“Justin?” Clay’s yawning. 

“Oh-h-Hey Clay,” he stammers. 

“You ok?”

“Yeah, of course. You should turn the light off if you’re going to fall asleep,” he says, trying to sound smooth, trying to sound like he isn’t shaking with the need for just a little bit of H. Clay would want to help, and that would just be so much worse. 

“Yeah,” Clay mumbles. He sets his headphones on the nightstand and flops back on his pillow. Two minutes later he’s snoring very softly. 

Justin turns off the lamp and reaches silently for his hoodie.   
_______________________________________

CLAY

He and Tony have a new game now. It’s called “weird shit Justin does,” and Tony wins if he can think of a rational reason for whatever strange story Clay has about his new sort-of brother. “Justin keeps his sneakers in his backpack all day at school,” Clay will say, or “Justin thinks Ironman was the first avenger.”

Usually Tony loses. 

The next Wednesday after school Tony swings by his house, and Clay is surprised to find Sheri and Nicole sitting in Tony’s backseat. 

“Hey Clay!” Sheri says with a smile. Nicole’s sat with them in the library three or four times now, but Sheri introduces her again anyway. Fifteen minutes later they’re sitting at a table at Monet’s. Sheri is up at the register ordering coffees. 

“So What do you got for today?” Tony asks. “Cereal with peanut butter? Any more socks in the shower?”

Nicole looks at them quizzically. “It’s just this stupid game we play where we try to figure out why Justin does some of the random shit that he does,” Clay says, trying not to blush. 

“Oo, do tell then,” she says with a smirk. 

“He volunteered to clean out the gutters,” Clay said. “I mean, have either of you ever cleaned gutters before? He’s like obsessed with doing yard work for my dad. He even helped him aerate the yard. I don't even know what that is.”

Tony shakes his head, but Nicole scrunches her face up just like she does in chemistry class. “Well, but that does make sense,” she says after a minute. 

Tony raises his eyebrows. “Being desperate to get affection and approval is common in child abuse cases,” she says. “Thanks, Sheri,” she adds as Sheri sits down with them. Sheri launches into a tirade about coffee creamer, but Clay isn’t listening. 

Tony drops him off last. “What’s going on in that Clay head of yours?” he asks, turning on to the Jensens’ street. 

“Child abuse?” Clay says, the phrase strange in his mouth. 

“I mean yeah, I guess. But you knew that already.”

“Did I?” Clay asks hollowly. 

“Clay, what kind of mother lets their kid live homeless for five months and doesn’t show up when he needs her to get him out of juvie? Justin lives with you and your parents now, and he’s way better off for it. Don’t beat yourself up about the past.”

“I’m not, I just… it just sounds different when you say it that way. And how did Nicole know that anyway? There’s no way he told her.”

“You’d have to ask her,” Tony says. 

“Yeah,” Clay mutters, unbuckling his seatbelt as Tony pulls up in front of his house. “Thanks for the ride.” He gets out of the car. 

“Can’t blame yourself for anything with this one, Clay!” Tony calls after him as he heads up the sidewalk. 

“I know, Tony,” Clay calls back. 

 

Justin comes back from work that evening reeking of Mexican fiesta. Clay watches him wander around their room, emptying out his pockets and getting socks everywhere with a slight frown on his face. Tony’s right, there’s nothing to be done now, but why does hearing the phrase child abuse make it seem worse? “If you want to call it rape, call it rape.” Bryce whispers in his head. Naming the thing makes it real, maybe. 

“I hung out with your coworker,” he says, scowling as Justin gives him a coy smirk. 

“I mean, like, with a group of other people,” Clay backpedals. “I didn’t even know she was going to be there.”

“Hey, it’s you, I’ll take it.” 

“How well do you know her?”

Justin shrugged. “I see her at work some. School some.”

“How-how much does she know about… the tapes. Hannah.”

Justin’s smirk goes away. “You’re the one who posted them online, remember?”  

“Yeah, I remember,” Clay says.   

“When I got hired I had to tell her aunt about juvie and all of that, and I’m pretty sure all of them know everything I did.”

“Me too then,” Clay says. 

“Yeah, only you didn’t do anything,” Justin mutters. He grabs his clothes and heads off for the shower. Clay doesn’t really know what he wanted out of that conversation, but it wasn’t that, and he’s still agitated about it the next day at school. He flags down Zach as he heads into the library. 

“Hey!” Zach’s smiles brightly. Clay knows Zach would, desperately love to put all of the past behind them and just go back to school and sports and be done with it all, and it makes Clay feel a little more approachable toward him. The guy’s friends with Justin, maybe his best friend even, and so what the hell? So he slept with Hannah, what the hell? It’s time to be friends. 

He doesn’t know what sport to ask about, but he fumbles through a few questions anyway. He finds himself veering into another question without really planning to, his voice a choked sort of nonchalance. “Do you uh… think Justin does things to get my approval?” He doesn’t use the word desperate. Zach glances across the library to where Justin is holding up a page of his math book for Cyrus to look at. Zach smirks. 

“I mean, yeah. Of course.” Zach’s face falls slightly as Clay frowns. “Hey, better than him trying to get Bryce’s approval like he used to,” Zach says darkly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	4. How Long Can This Last?

JUSTIN

Weeks pass. It’s almost the end of the school year. Justin gets better at grilling chicken, rolling tortillas.  And he does his homework, all of it, and he’s passing everything (though Bs are “barely passing,” but what fucking ever, Clay). He’s even been reading extra books that Nikki’s loaned him. Her one aunt (Young Ms Garcia) writes for this blog, and her one article has this title, How Language Perpetuates Rape Culture something or other. Someone’s printed it off the computer and it’s just sitting there next to the lettuce. He sees it and he almost freaks. 

“Rape culture? Erick is the only other person in the kitchen besides him and Nikki. He can hear Even Older Ms. Garcia on the phone in the front room. 

“Yeah.” Nikki turns away front the stove. “Go ahead and read it, it won’t melt your eyes out…”

Rape culture is a phrase people write about, apparently. That’s what Nikki says. Rape culture is the things people do that make them think rape is ok. Or that rape victims are lying. Or that people like Bryce fucking Walker should have three months probation for being a serial rapist. He’s still standing there, staring at it, when Nikki turns back around. 

“You’ve really never heard the phrase ‘rape culture’ before?” she asks. 

“I am rape culture, Nikki,” he snaps. Fuck it, she knows anyway. 

So Nikki has Young Ms. Garcia lead him upstairs to their room and try to stack books on him. There’s enough books to make a whole library and the hell is Young Ms. Garcia doing cooking tacos for a living if she’s this smart? He only takes the first stack, but he does read them. All of them. He’s done being part of rape culture. He’s done with it. 

And you know what, maybe this whole thing, this New Justin Foley thing is going to work. Justin studies for finals and avoids Jess and eats dinner with Clay’s parents and listens carefully as Mrs. Jensen describes the progress they’re making toward official adoption. 

It’s weird though, how all this normal and stable and safe makes him feel sometimes. He sits in the kitchen doing homework while Mr Jensen cooks and he feels this clawing panic, this desperate thing trying to strangle him, because how can this be him, sitting here in this house and doing these things? How does he have Mrs. Jensen picking him up from work at night and Clay helping him with precalculus and other people doing his laundry if he doesn’t pay enough attention? How is all of this possibly his? And how long can this possibly last? 

And then there’s Clay. Justin doesn’t hardly care that he’s still using H at this point. Well, ok, he cares a little. How can he have watched his mom all those years and not feel like he’s failed every time he pulls out the needle? But he’s only using a tiny bit now, he’s trying to wean himself off completely, and that has to be enough, because it’s already fucking hard as it is. 

Clay wouldn’t see it that way though. With Clay, everything is black and white. Clay expects perfect from himself and he’s demanded perfect of Justin too, but Justin isn’t perfect. Deep down he’s still just a fuck up, and knowing how to make salsa or pass his English final isn’t going to change that. Maybe it will be H that eventually gets him thrown out of this place, or maybe it will be something else, but somewhere down the line he’s going to fuck up, and damn if he can’t already see the look Clay’s going to have on his face. 

He thinks maybe they’re making progress, right? He doesn’t know what brothers are supposed to talk about, but his friends always used to talk about girls, and now Clay’s always talking about Nikki. Nikki likes Star Wars, Nikki coffee, Nikki likes being called Nikki instead of Nicole. And they’ve gone on a few dates even, and it’s hilarious to get Clay’s version of all of it. It’s like what he used to do with Bryce and them, only without all the fucked up, rape culture parts. 

“Does she… mention me ever?” Clay asks. “Like, when you’re working with her. Does she say anything about me?”

Justin raises his eyebrows and wiggles them, then laughs at how exasperated Clay gets. “She does, actually,” he eventually admits. “Like a lot.”  

Cause she does. She talks about Clay all the fucking time. 

But Clay calls out from nightmares loud enough that Justin wakes up sometimes. He still says “fine” when Mrs. Jensen asks about his day, “whatever, Mom” when she tries to care about his life. At this point his tone is the same when he talks to Justin too.

“Whatever, Justin.”

“I’m fine, Justin.”

“Fuck off, Foley.”

He shouldn’t, but he still does.   
_________________________________

 

CLAY

It’s happened. 

Again.

It’s the last day of school and it’s such a huge relief to walk out those doors. He feels a bit like he’s walking away from the year itself as he heads out into the parking lot. Leaving behind his regrets and his failures and his ghosts. The rest of them, anyway. When he sees Nikki lounging on the hood of his car with a novel, clearly waiting for him, she looks beautiful. All dark curls and smiles and chatter about the summer. Maybe this is what the future can look like, he thinks in the back of his mind, the part that is wedged behind Tyler and Hannah and all the rest. He invites her to ride with him, and he takes her hand as they ride in his car. He invites her into his empty house, and then upstairs into his bedroom. He moans softly when she presses up against him at the door and kisses him. 

A minute later they’re on his bed. Once second he’s happy, and she’s kissing him, and it’s amazing. 

The next second he’s sitting on the floor and panting, his thoughts racing with Skye and Hannah and all the other times that this scenario has gone wrong. 

Nikki crouches next to him carefully, placing her hand first in his shoulder, then on his back, rubbing slowly as he gradually regains control of his breathing. “Sorry,” he finally says, shame creeping into his voice.

She slings her arm over his shoulder. “I just…” he says, but how does he explain it? “Baggage,” he finally mumbles, running his hand over the carpet. 

“No worries,” she says. He remembers Skye flipping out about this, accusing him of still loving Hannah. It’s not that now, though. Not really.  

“It’s ok if you want to go,” he says, but Nikki just keeps sitting there on the floor with him. 

“I don’t really want to,” she says calmly. A spark of anger flares up In him. 

“It’s not you, it’s just… it just reminds me of… stuff.”

“Well, I knew it wasn’t me,” she says, lilting up her eyebrows and smiling a coy smile, but it just makes him angry. How can she be so calm? How can she not take it personally? 

“You’re always like this,” he snaps. “Always so.. I mean, don’t you ever lose your shit or anything?” 

Now she pulls away from him. “What?”

“I mean, how can you not take it personally? I just had a panic attack because you tried to sleep with me. You’re like a fucking rock or something if you don’t take that personally!”

“Don’t tell me how I’m supposed to feel, Clay!” She shouts, but she doesn’t get up off the floor, doesn’t make to leave. 

“Sorry,” he finally mumbles again. “I’m jealous, I guess.” 

“Of what?”

“Of how calm you are, I guess. I mean, nothing seems to phase you, you know?”

“Of course I get bothered by things, Clay. The world’s a fucked up place, you know? There’s no point in getting all wigged out about stuff you can’t control.”

He puts his face in his hands and groans, because apparently he hasn’t embarrassed himself enough already. 

“Well it took me a long time to figure that out, if it makes you feel better,” she says. 

“Eungh,” he says. 

There’s silence for a minute or two. “Clay, can I tell you a story?”

“Will it help?”

“Well that’s the idea…”

“Sure. Whatever.”

“My Aunt Alicia-the one I moved here with-she and my mother grew up in this pretty bad situation, you know? My grandparents would fight a lot. Like… throw the furniture at the walls and slap each other and get a visit from the cops kind of fights. My mom was ten when Alicia was born. She would try to keep her away from all the fighting…” Nikki glances at him, as though she is checking if he is listening. He’s listening. 

“That was basically impossible though, so instead she would say ‘this isn’t what love looks like.’ Like she said it all the time. Then when she was 19 she moved in with her boyfriend. She had me when she was 20. That was her out. Alicia’s was track. She went to college on a partial scholarship and she lived with me and my parents. She gets all into feminism and writing and all, but then she meets this guy and next thing you know she’s in an abusive relationship.” Nikki glances at him. 

“She wouldn’t listen to you,” Clay guesses. 

“Or my mom. Or my grandma, or her friends, or anybody. For months, you know? I was so frustrated, and when I told my mom she was basically like ‘yeah, this has been my whole life.’ Finally she broke up with him, but he would show up at her apartment and bang on the door all the time. ‘Get a restraining order,’ my mom said, but she didn’t.” 

“Is this why you live in California now?” Clay whispers.

“She started spending the night at our apartment. On the couch, you know? At the beginning of April he showed up drunk one evening. I was the only other person home. He beat her up and I screamed a lot and the neighbor downstairs called the cops.”

“Were you the one that convinced her to move?”

“No. She got a restraining order and sold her car and her furniture and everything and said she was going to go live with Aunt Lena and Aunt Rosa and make tacos and shit,  and I said I wanted to come. I didn’t fix anything, Clay. I tried and I couldn't. All I could do was show up for her.”

A silence settles across the room. “You’ve had shit in your life, Clay, I get that. But it’s not all on you.”

“Justin told you about Hannah,” It comes out sounding more accusatory than he means it to. 

“Clay I couldn’t exist at Liberty without hearing about Hannah.”

“Well it wasn’t just her, you know. I couldn’t help Alex, or Skye, or…” fuck, now he’s crying-“...Tyler. I can’t even fix Justin, and he lives in my fucking house!” Snot builds up in his nose. He wipes angrily at his face. Nikki has her arm around him again, letting him cry onto her shoulder, seemingly unperturbed by the snot. 

“Come on Clay. You’re great at showing up for your friends. I don’t know about those other people, but I know you’ve helped Justin. You’ve helped him a lot. He lives somewhere safe because of you.”

“That’s how you knew where he came from,” Clay mutters darkly, realization grabbing hold of him. You knew Justin came from an abusive family because you’ve seen it before.” He sniffles loudly. 

“I don’t know, I guess.”

    “Is your aunt fine now, because she moved here? Did everything just go away?”

    “That’s not how things work, Clay, come on!” 

    “Well living here hasn’t fixed Justin either.” He swallows back another round of snot, voicing one of the worries that he’s been afraid to say out loud. “I think he’s still using heroin even. I can’t prove it, but I mean come on! Heroin!”

You can’t just fix people Clay, that was the whole point of my story. Why don’t you help yourself out and cut yourself some slack?” Nikki’s voice is a forced calm. 

“I can’t. I just can’t.” He deflates some, his tears slowing. For a few minutes there is quiet. 

“Well...well ok, then, Clay.” He watches Nikki get off the floor and reach for her backpack.   
      
“Wait… are you leaving?”

“You’ve got to love yourself before you can worry about loving me,” she says, tying her shoes. “I mean that.” 

“Wait, are you breaking up with me?”

“If we were together, then yeah, I’m breaking up with you.”

“Wait, five minutes ago we were going to have sex, and now you’re breaking up with me?”

“I’m still your friend,” she says. “For real. You figure your shit out, maybe we can try this again sometime.”

He’s still sitting on the bedroom floor as she walks away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	5. The Last Day of School

JUSTIN

The last day of school isn’t as exciting when summer school starts the next week, but as the students around him build up to a frenzy Justin can’t help getting a little worked up anyway. Jess catches up to him while he’s waiting outside after the last bell rings. He’d been watching people throwing papers around and celebrating, hadn’t been paying attention, and then there she is. 

“Hey,” she says. She reaches out for his arm, looping her own through it casually, but he knows it’s to keep him from leaving. “Can you believe this year actually ended?” she asks. 

He brushes away a stray piece of paper that drifts toward her head. “Not really,” he says. He hasn’t even looked at her in two weeks; she’s beautiful, flushed full of the happiness around her, her hair shining in the sun. It’s like, painful to even look at her. “What’s up?” he finally says. He glances around, but he doesn’t see her dad’s car anywhere. 

“Just glad to be walking out of this place right now,” she says. “Ready for the fresh start, you know?”

“I do.” He really does. 

“You waiting for Clay?”

“Nah, work,” he mumbles. 

She smirks.   
      
“What?”

“You’re really doing this, aren’t you. I mean, Clay said the official adoption papers went through and everything.”

“Yeah. The Jensens… they’ve been great. What’s new with you though… how’s… are you and Alex…”

“Just friends,” she says softly. “It wasn’t because of the dance, but it just… we’re better as friends.”

“Oh,” he mumbles. Zach had mentioned something about that, but it had been pretty hard to follow up without bringing Jess up, and he didn’t bring Jess up ever, so. “Is that ok?”  
      
“Yeah, it’s ok,” she says. He waves as Erick navigates the Spice of Life! truck through the thinning crowd of students. “Listen Justin, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but… don’t be a stranger all summer, ok?”

She gives him a one-armed hug and heads off down the sidewalk, leaving him staring after her. 

“No school!” Erick shouts as he opens the door. 

It’s only around nine when he’s dropped off at the Jensens’ again. Mrs. Jensen’s left him a voicemail… he listens to her go into detail about a dinner date and “Clay’s at the movies, I think he’ll be back around nine; there’s chicken from last night in the fridge,” she says. He can’t help the warm feeling that flows through him as he uses the key she gave him to open the door, locking it behind him and making his way into the kitchen. He doesn’t know how long this whole thing can last maybe, but it sure is nice now. 

Clay must not be back yet; he flicks on the kitchen light, pulling out a plate and reaching for the fridge. Maybe it’s that last-day of school euphoria, maybe it’s Mrs Jensen’s voicemail… whatever it is, he doesn’t hear the front door being forced open, doesn’t turn around until it’s too late. One second he’s reaching for the chicken, and the next Seth is there, swinging a metal baseball bat and sending him face first into the refrigerator door. 

Pain explodes across his back as he responds reflexively, ducking as the bat cracks over his head, coming up at Seth and trying to tackle him, sending both of them into a kitchen chair and skidding to the floor. Panic floods through him as Seth lets out a growl, pushing Justin off him, fingers groping for the bat. Justin shoves the chair between them as Seth regains his feet. “Thought you could run from me, you shit!” Seth shouts, smashing the back of the chair with the bat. He charges forward and so Justin throws himself forward too, trying to avoid the bat, his brain screaming that this can’t be happening here, that Seth can’t be here. He manages to punch Seth in the face, but the next second the man’s hands are on his head, shoving his face into the refrigerator again, slamming him against the door, then the cabinet, then again, until he is seeing stars. But this has always been the problem, Seth has always been stronger than him, and so Justin reaches his hand out for the plate on the counter, swinging out with it blindly, smashing it against Seth. 

“Seth, fuck, Seth!” he shouts. 

“How could I not find you in that giant purple truck, you stupid bastard!” Seth shouts and the next second he’s on the ground. No fuck, get up, fuck. Seth is going to kill him. He’s going to kill him, right here in the Jensens’ kitchen. Not now, why now. Pain laces up and down his body, he’s can’t even tell if it’s the bat or Seth’s kicking him or what, and in desperation his hands reach out, latching onto a piece of the plate and he throws it at Seth’s face, the kitchen tilting, Seth roaring, as he launches himself at him again.   
______________________________

CLAY

Clay hadn’t wanted to go to the movies. Tony had burst into his room and basically dragged him out the door, and then he still hadn’t wanted to go to the movies, but he hadn’t had any choice. 

“Now was that really so bad?” Tony asks as they pull onto his street. Caleb chuckles from the passenger seat. 

“It was the worst Tony,” he says, even though he does feel a little bit better. Not actually better, but maybe a little bit closer. 

“Hey, why’s your front door open?” Caleb asks as they pull up to the house. Clay glances up the lawn. The automatic light’s come on, and the front door hangs open. 

“That’s weird…”

“Weird like ‘Tony come inside with me cause I’m scared,’ weird?” Tony asks as Clay opens the car door. A muffled yell floats out across the lawn. 

“What the..” Clay mutters, hurrying up the lawn. He can hear Tony and Caleb getting out of the car behind him. He finds himself sprinting as he hears screaming, launching himself down the hall and toward the light and noise In the kitchen. 

Thank God Tony’s right behind him, because when he gets to the kitchen door he freezes. Justin and a man are both on the ground, half the kitchen demolished around them. There’s blood and broken dishes coating the floor and the counter, and the refrigerator hangs open. Tony pushes past him as the man wrenches free of Justin’s grip and makes to run. Almost abstractly, he watches Tony tackle him. Then the world snaps back into place and he rushes forward, pulling out his cell phone and running over to where Justin is slumped on the floor. 

“911, what is your emergency?” a voice asks. 

“Some guy tried to kill my brother,” Clay shouts into the phone. 

“Here, I’ll do it,” Caleb says from behind him, and Clay hands over his phone. A few feet away, Tony has the man underneath him, his face pressed against the tile on the floor. 

“Stupid fucking son of a cunt!” the man grunts, and Tony presses his hand over the man’s bloody mouth. 

“Justin, Justin, can you hear me?” Clay asks. His face is a mess, blossoming with bruises, a cut near his hair smearing blood down the side of his head and neck. He head flops and his eyelids flutter as Clay shakes his shoulder. 

“Police and ambulance coming,” Caleb says. 

“Justin, answer me,” Clay says, his voice cracking as he grips Justin’s shirt. 

“Mmm,” Justin mumbles, blood dribbling down his chin.   
      
“Here, don’t shake him,” Caleb says, his hand on Clay's shoulder. He’s got his phone nestled between his neck and his ear, probably still listening to the emergency dispatcher. 

Clay crouches on the floor, time reeling, until he hears the distant sound of sirens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	6. Eventually

JUSTIN

He didn’t win, maybe, but he doesn’t think he lost either. It’s hard to tell what’s going on with his head pounding and everything spinning, but he’s sure he saw the police take Seth away in handcuffs. The ambulance ride is a blur of people shining lights in his eyes and saying stuff that’s hard to focus on. In fact everything is hard to focus on for a while. 

Eventually though, Clay’s there. “...waiting to get a cast on your arm,” he’s saying. 

“Yeah,” Justin says, squinting Clay into focus. He looks strained. “I’m sorry,” he says 

“Sorry for what?”

“He was my mom’s old boyfriend. He said if I came back he’d kill me, but I didn’t think that meant he’d try and find me!”

Clay looks a lot more strained. “Justin, it wasn’t your-“

“I’ll give you some money for new chairs and whatever,” he says. “And I’ll get my stuff after I get out of here.” The words tumble from his lips, disjointed and numb. It was too good to last anyway, his throbbing brain whispers. 

“Justin what are you talking about?”

He wets his lips and squints harder. All things considered, he should be able to function better through whatever pain medicine it was they gave him. “I didn’t mean to trash the kitchen,” he says. “And I just need to get my stuff before I go.”

“Justin, what are you talking about?” Justin brings his hand up to rub his mouth, wondering why it’s so numb. There’s a bandage on his hand and he feels like he’s drooling but he can’t tell. It’s no wonder Clay can’t understand him, but he’s got to. 

“Listen, Clay, listen, just tell your parents-“

“Justin don’t touch your mouth, you’ve got stitches in your lip,” Clay says, grabbing hold of his hand. 

He remembers, now that Clay mentions it. “Clay! What I’m trying to say is…” he begins, but Clay’s turned around, and it takes him a minute to realize that Mr. and Mrs. Jensen are there. 

His brain feels wrung-out and sluggish, but he still panics.   
______________________________

CLAY

In the four months since he dragged Justin off the streets Clay has seen him puking and high and fighting and running away. He’s seen him call out his best friend in a courthouse and he’s seen him in handcuffs. He’s seen him broken. But this Justin is something new. He stiffens as Lainie and Matt enter the room, his left arm cradled in his right, head hunched downward. His mom kind of stops when she sees the state of Justin’s face, but his dad strides right over and 

Justin 

fucking 

Foley 

loses his shit. One second he’s sitting on the edge of the bed and the next he’s bolting for the door and Matt’s reaching for his arm and “no Dad, it’s broken,” Clay’s saying, but his dad doesn’t let go because Justin’s trying to shove through them all and everyone is yelling and there’s one nurse, then another, then a security guard, and five seconds after that Clay and his parents are standing in the emergency waiting room with the doors closed behind them. 

For a moment, the three of them just stare at each other. His mom’s kind of got tears on her face, but she pulls him into a hug anyway. “Well that could have gone better,” his dad finally says. It looks stupid, but Clay pulls him into the hug too. 

“It’s ok,” His mom says, lawyer inserted into her voice. Clay knows she’s done it to sound in control, steady, and it works on him even though he knows this. Tony comes walking over, and Clay just gives him a hug too. 

“Oh Tony, you and your poor date should go home,” his mom says. Caleb’s walking over now too, and behind him is... Jessica?

“I texted her about what happened, I didn’t tell her to come over,” Tony says to the look Clay gives him. “What happened?” he adds pointedly as Lainie pulls a tissue from her purse and begins dabbing her eyes. 

Hey Jess,” Clay mutters as his mom starts giving his friends hugs too. He doesn’t want to think about what happened. “I don’t know what happened, Justin just kind of lost it,” he says to the floor. He does know what happened, actually. He wishes he doesn’t, but he does. 

Jessica gives him a hug too. He sits with Jess and his dad in plastic chairs and tries not to think about anything while his mom lawyer talks Tony and Caleb into going home and calling tomorrow. He watches from across the room as she goes after the person at the desk next, but he can’t bring himself to wonder what they’re talking about. Eventually a doctor comes over. 

“You’re Justin Foley’s guardian?” the woman asks, looking at his dad. 

“Yes.” His dad straightens up, his face anxious. As though she’s received a magnetic que, his mom pops up at the doctor’s side. 

“He needs to stay calm and take it easy. If you can keep him that way you can take him home.”

Clay watches his parents exchange glances. “What if I talked to him first?” Jessica says quietly. Lainie purses her lips.

“Take Clay with you,” she finally says. 

They must have given him some other medication, because this time Justin’s in another room, on top of the bed with a half-smile on his face. His left eye is basically swollen shut at this point, but his right droops sleepily. “God, Justin,” Jessica says. Clay hangs back by the door as she walks over to him, taking his bandaged hand carefully. 

“Hey Jess,” he says, his words slightly slurred. 

“What’s going on with you, huh?” she asks, wrapping him carefully into a hug. “What’s all this about trying to leave? You know this wasn’t your fault. The Jensens don’t blame you, and nobody else does either.”

One quarter of Justin’s vision zeros in on Clay. “She’s right,” he says simply. 

“I… the kitchen,” Justin mumbles. He makes to put his hand up to the stitches on his mouth again but Jess curls her fingers in his instead. 

“Nobody cares about a few broken dishes, Justin. We’re your family now, ok? There’s nothing you can do to change that.” 

Justin leans his face into Jessica. “Let them take you home, ok?” Jessica wipes a tear off her face over top of Justin’s head. “You’re safe there, I promise,” she whispers. She gives Clay a pointed look and so he steps into the room, sitting down on the edge of the bed next to Justin, who lets go of Jessica and rubs his open eye. 

“I love you, Jess,” he mumbles. 

“I know, Justin” she says quietly. Clay looks at her questioningly, but she just shrugs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	7. It's Progress, I Guess

JUSTIN

He wakes to the smell of bacon cooking downstairs. An avalanche of pounding and throbbing crashes over him, but it’s like it doesn’t matter, because here he is, still in Clay’s room, still in the Jensens’ house. He can hear Mrs. Jensen’s voice distantly. Clay’s not in the room with him, but his bed is messed up like he got out of it a little bit ago. These people. They’re crazy, they must be, because here he still is. Here he is, waking up in their house again, and if last night wasn’t enough to kick him out then what even is? 

He sits up as he hears a knock on the edge of the open door. “Can I come in?” Mr. Jensen asks, a plate that smells like bacon in his hands. 

“Yeah, sure,” Justin says. The words make his mouth hurt and sitting up makes his rib cage hurt, but he sits up anyway. His left eye is still kind of slitted, but he can mostly see out of it, which is an improvement since the last time he woke up. His cheeks redden slightly as he thinks about all his yelling and panicking in the emergency room last night. “Mr. Jensen,” he begins, his eyes on his blanket.

“Matt.”

“Matt, I’m sorry about the way I acted... last night.”

“Don’t be,” Matt says, sitting down on the edge of the bed and handing him the plate. 

“I… uh…” he says, but he doesn’t know how to explain it. 

“I would never, ever hurt you, Justin.” Matt says. “You know that, right?” 

“Yeah, I do,” he says. 

“And there is nothing, nothing you can do that would ever make us tell you to leave. You know that too, right?”

“Uh…. yeah. I do,” he says. 

“Well I just had to say it,” Matt says, the bed dipping as he stands up. “You want me to get you some more aspirin?”

Justin nods and says please and watches him walk back out of the room. He thinks, maybe, that that was just what he needed to hear.   
_________________________________

 

CLAY

Alex and Zach come by around eleven and end  up staying for lunch. Sheri and Tony and Jessica come by afterward. Justin spends most of the time they’re there sleeping in a chair in the living room, his head slowly drooling forward. But Clay appreciates the distraction. Around three Nikki knocks on the door, what must be her aunt and a contingency from the local retirement home accompanying her. “We made you some food so you won’t have to worry about dinner,” a very old woman says to his mom. Clay watches Nikki talking to Justin out of the corner of his eye as her relatives unload what must be fifteen boxes onto his parents. 

“What’s all this?” he asks her.

“Showing up for people, Clay,” she says. She sits with them in the living room while the little old man that came with her helps his dad install a new doorknob and a security camera. Justin’s snoring again, and Clay can’t think of anything to say. Nikki can’t seem to either, but she doesn’t leave. 

He isn’t alone with Justin until they’re both lying in bed that night. He ought to say something, but where to even begin? His emotions roll over him, thick and suffocating. 

“Do I…” he finally says, his voice striking out into the silence, “... show up for people?”

“Yeah,” issue out of the dark from the other side of the room. 

“I mean like, do I-“

“Yes, dumbass. All the fucking time.”

“I don’t think you know what I mean, I’m asking if I-“

“If you drive to Oakland to find someone you hate because it might help Jessica? If you get the shit beat out of you to get a confession from Bryce? If you let Tyler stick a gun in your face so the cops won’t kill him?”

“Ok, maybe you do know what I mean,” Clay says. 

“You’re like the best person I know, Clay. Of course you show up for people. If you weren’t depressed and guilty and shit you would know that.”

“I’m not-don’t talk about… that’s not why I brought this up, Justin,” he says, his voice growing heated. “Don’t even start with that again, you’re the one in pieces right now! Jesus, just fuck off. 

Justin does not fuck off though, and next the lamp’s back on, and Clay’s yelling, and Justin’s yelling back, and fuck Justin, because now both his parents are in the room.   
      
“What is going on in here?” his mom says, tying the straps around her bathrobe. Justin looks at him pointedly. What though? He’s not going to just tell his parents about the gun, about Bryce, about his dreams of Hannah. What can he say? Since when has Justin ever yelled at him anyway? 

Justin waves his hand, gesturing for Clay to speak. His mom’s staring at him, and his dad’s behind her. 

“I uh..” he says. There’s nothing else for it. “I uh… maybe want to see a therapist,” he says. “I mean, maybe you call and set up an appointment for me some time.”

“Of course, sweety,” his mom says, glancing back at his dad. “I’ll call on Monday morning.”

“Ok. Ok, good.”

“Is there anything you want to talk about?”

“No, uh… no. Thanks, Mom.”

She glances over at Justin and he smiles at her. “Well goodnight then, I guess.”

“No more shouting,” his dad adds, closing the door behind them. 

“Well, you survived,” Justin says. 

“Barely,” he mumbles, turning off the lamp and throwing himself back down on his bed. 

“Goodnight.”

“I hate you.”

“Ok. Goodnight.”  
_______________________________

 

JUSTIN

Clay wakes him up with aspirin and orange juice and enchiladas. 

“I can walk down the stairs,” he grumbles, smiling anyway. 

“Your coworkers brought over so much food that we’re eating it for breakfast for the foreseeable future, in case you were wondering.”

“Sure,” he says. Like he would have a problem with too much food. He digs in, glancing up at Clay as he sits down at the desk. “You mad about last night?”

“No,” Clay says quietly. “Not anymore,”

“For real? I figured you would be.” He swallows down the aspirin, eager to make his head pound less. 

Clay just smiles. 

“What?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Clay.”

“I just… it’s progress, I guess. That you’re comfortable enough here that you can call me out on my shit.”  
      
It doesn’t sound like it should be a complement, except for the way he says it. And the way he smiles, like he’s proud. Justin looks hastily back down at his enchiladas. He glances up. It’s embarrassing, but he fucking has to say it again. “Clay, you bringing me here completely changed my life, you know. I mean, I’m not like, great now or anything, but maybe now I can be. I just… thank you.”

Clay turns around in the chair, facing the window. “Yeah,” he mutters, his breath hitching. Justin knows he’s crying. He goes back to his breakfast. It’s ok though. He needed to hear it. He’ll probably need to hear it again, and maybe even again after that. Clay will be alright. He will too. They all will. 

 

The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
